Rosetimes -- online video interviews

The other day I started wondering whether it's possible to conduct video interviews over the Internet in the style of a Charlie Rose interview -- with crystal clear audio. It turns out there is a way of doing so by using a camcorder at each side of the interview -- recording video and audio locally. The video tracks can then be merged afterwards using QuickTime Pro, Final Cut or any of several other video programs.

I'm naming this new video form "rosetimes" in honor of Charlie Rose, the interviewer on public television here in the United States.

You can see some sample rosetimes at http://rosetimes.com

Later this month I'll be posting some rosetimes with several people at several different lcoations all talking with one another. Google Video lets you hyperlink to a particular second in any video you upload, which allows for some interesting text indexing of rosetimes -- and other videos.

Rosetimes ought to look and sound quite nice on the rumored iPod with 16 x 9 aspect ratio.

I'm hoping that rosetimes bring more voices to the table. In the spirit of the Internet, I'm sharing for free the instructions on how to create rosetimes. (See the screencasts linked to from "Making Rosetimes" at the top right of http://rosetimes.com)

We can learn so much when we listen more to each other.

phil shapiro

http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro

btw, it's possible to shoot some excellent rosetime videos using donated analog camcorders. As long as the camcorder has a microphone input jack and you use clip on (lavalier) microphones -- and decent lighting -- you can create excellent videos for putting on the web. You do need to transfer the analog video into digital format. Most recent digital camcorders can perform that feat -- or you can buy an analog to digital video converter box.

Here's some video I shot on an analog camcorder a few years ago.
It looks and sounds just fine on the web.

http://www.archive.org/details/juanwilliamsonmarshall